Ghetto

Jews were forced into ghettos in cities including Warsaw and Łódź. Overcrowding, inadequate food, disease and violence caused many deaths. Ghettos isolated Jewish communities and made them easier for the occupying authorities to control and deport.

Many Black residents lived in overcrowded, run-down neighbourhoods, often described as ghettos. Poor housing, unemployment, lower standards of education and fewer opportunities created anger and despair. Discriminatory policing deepened resentment because people could feel that the authorities responsible for protecting them were instead treating them unfairly.

From late 1939, the Nazis established ghettos: areas where Jews were forcibly confined and separated from the surrounding population. On 21 September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich ordered the concentration of Polish Jews in large towns and cities near railway lines. This made communities easier to control and provided access to transport for later deportations.

Ghettos, mass shootings and death camps became connected parts of the genocide, but they did not form one fixed sequence experienced by every victim.